Writing Test Driven Apps with http4k

Testing HTTP services can be a painful and challenging process for developers: tests are often slow running, involve complicated (or coupled) setup, rely on unreliable 3rd party dependencies, or deal with complicated outputs.

In this talk, the speakers will demonstrate how the http4k library leverages its "Server as a Function" roots to enable writing apps which can be test-driven at all levels of the Testing Pyramid, using a set of tools derived from decades of experience testing backend applications to make many of the above issues go away.

This talk is about Kotlin HTTP server technologies and how to test them to overcome problems (slow/flakey tests, lack of reuse, etc.). The audience gets an intro to the Server as a Function concept and http4k, but also can take away a lot of knowledge about how to apply the solutions to those problems in a unique and original way.

Transcript

1. HTTP4K
   WRITING TEST-DRIVEN APPS WITH
   DAVID DENTON / IVAN SANCHEZ
   

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2. WRITING TEST-DRIVEN APPS WITH HTTP4K / WHAT PROBLEMS ARE WE TRYING TO SOLVE?
   ▸ Problems encountered in app development lifecycle:
   ▸ Slow test suites impact delivery speed / MTTR
   ▸ Flakey tests cause build instability
   ▸ Switching technologies impossible without ditching tests
   ▸ Duplication caused by different levels of pyramid
   UI
   INTEGRATION
   UNIT
   Can we write HTTP tests that won’t
   get in our way?
   

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3. WRITING TEST-DRIVEN APPS WITH HTTP4K / WHAT ARE THE CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD TEST?
   ▸ What makes a good test?
   ▸ Easy to write and maintain
   ▸ Quick & reliable to run
   ▸ Uncoupled to underlying technology
   ▸ Reusable in different contexts
   

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4. WRITING TEST-DRIVEN APPS WITH HTTP4K / WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HTTP4K
   ▸ http4k == Server as a Function in Kotlin
   typealias HttpHandler = (Request) -> Response
   ▸ Uniform: HTTP server == HTTP Client
   ▸ HTTP Messages are immutable data classes
   ▸ Designed for Testability
   

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5. WRITING TEST-DRIVEN APPS WITH HTTP4K / DEFINING OUR REQUIREMENTS
   ▸ Writing an HTTP application to Analyse Sentences
   ▸ Endpoints:
   ▸ Valid word count in a sentence: POST to /count
   ▸ Record and report app hit count: GET to /calls
   ▸ Analyse the letter makeup of a sentence: POST to /analyse
   ▸ Utilise 3rd party Dictionary HTTP service
   

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6. STEPS 1-4
   

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7. WRITING TEST-DRIVEN APPS WITH HTTP4K / DEVELOP / DEFINING MIDDLEWARE WITH FILTERS
   ▸ Decorate HttpHandlers with Filter
   typealias Filter = (HttpHandler) -> HttpHandler
   val stack: Filter = logging.then(security)
   val app: HttpHandler = stack.then(httpHandler)
   ▸ Use to modify HTTP messages or Security, Logging etc..
   ▸ They compose together into “stacks”:
   

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8. STEPS 5-6
   

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9. WRITING TEST-DRIVEN APPS WITH HTTP4K / DEVELOP / REUSABLE TEST CONTRACTS
   ▸ Service tests should be reusable
   ▸ Unit tests - entirely in memory
   ▸ Integration tests - running a live server
   ▸ We can extract a common test contract… TEST CONTRACT
   UNIT TEST INTEGRATION TEST
   val app: HttpHandler
   val app =
   SentenceAnalyser() val app = OkHttp()
   

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10. STEPS 7-9
    

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11. WRITING TEST-DRIVEN APPS WITH HTTP4K / DEVELOP / ANALYSING SENTENCES
    ▸ Provide JSON breakdown of character content in a submitted sentence
    INPUT OUTPUT
    {
    "breakdown":{
    “a":2,
    "d":2,
    “i”:2,
    “n”:1,
    "v":2,
    }
    }
    POST /analyse
    BODY: david ivan
    

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12. STEP 10
    

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13. WRITING TEST-DRIVEN APPS WITH HTTP4K / DEVELOP / AUTO JSON FORMATTING WITH LENSES
    ▸ What is a Lens - it’s 2 functions!
    ▸ Represent JSON model objects as Kotlin data classes
    ▸ Lens creation:
    Inject: (HttpMessage, X) -> HttpMessage
    Extract: (HttpMessage) -> X
    val lens = Body.auto().toLens()
    

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14. STEP 11
    

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15. WRITING TEST-DRIVEN APPS WITH HTTP4K / DEVELOP / ABOUT THE DICTIONARY
    ▸ Use the dictionary service to validates words
    ▸ Lives at http://api.dictionary.com:10000/
    ▸ Endpoint GET /{word} - returns 200 (valid) or 404
    ▸ Create a domain client
    ▸ We can write a contract test to prove our usage
    

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16. STEP 13
    

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17. WRITING TEST-DRIVEN APPS WITH HTTP4K / DEVELOP / FAKING 3RD PARTY DEPENDENCIES
    ▸ 3rd party test services are slow and unreliable
    ▸ Create a simple stateful fake
    ▸ Can start this as a server
    ▸ Prove behaviour using reusable contract test
    ▸ Can add test cases to check failure modes
    DICTIONARY CONTRACT
    FAKE TEST REAL TEST
    val dict: HttpHandler
    val dict =
    FakeDictionary() val dict = OkHttp()
    + + Failure tests
    

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18. STEP 14
    

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19. STEP 15
    

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20. WRITING TEST-DRIVEN APPS WITH HTTP4K / WRAPPING UP
    ▸ What did we gain?
    ▸ Fast in memory tests - no port required!
    ▸ Reusable test code (no custom infrastructure!)
    ▸ 3rd party dependency problems mitigated:
    ▸ Flakey
    ▸ Can’t make them fail
    

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21. WRITING TEST-DRIVEN APPS WITH HTTP4K / DEVELOP / AND THERE’S MORE!
    ▸ http4k also supports:
    ▸ Chaos/failure mode testing with the ChaosEngine
    ▸ Service Virtualisation with Servirtium
    ▸ In-memory browser testing with WebDriver
    

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22. WRITING TEST-DRIVEN APPS WITH HTTP4K / FIN
    ivan@http4k.org
    @s4nchez
    david@http4k.org
    @daviddenton
    #questions
    quickstart: start.http4k.org
    web: www.http4k.org
    slack: #http4k @ kotlinlang
    @http4k
    source code: bit.ly/tdd_http4k_code
    

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